Sustainable nutrition for an aging population

The rapidly expanding aging population around the world is compounding concerns about food security and sustainability. Continued rise in the number of older adults will require not only that there be an adequate supply of food but that this can promote good health.

Asia, in particular, looks to be among the first to be hit by this silver avalanche, said Simon Hague, general manager of Foodservice Chains South East Asia, during the Future of Sustainable Nutrition event organised by Kerry Health and Nutrition Institute (KHNI) in Singapore. The event, which marked KHNI’s 10th anniversary and leveraged its Ten Key Health and Nutrition Trends for 2025 report, spotlighted the issues surrounding a rapidly aging population, specifically on the food and nutrition requirements and potential health issues of older adults, alongside related themes on accessible nutrition, women’s health and sodium reduction.

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Asians above 50 years old, Hague said, will account for 32% of the region’s population by 2030. “In some of the markets in Asia, such as Korea, they now sell more prams for dogs than they do for babies. The aging population is rising fast, and this means that we need to change the way we look at things,” he added. 

Maintaining good health and well-being, which involves getting proper nutrition and being physically and mentally active, is the linchpin of aging well and may very well determine how one can achieve and enjoy quality of life even at their golden years. Ensuring proper nutrition, however, necessitates taking into consideration that the nutrition needs of individuals change as they advance in years.

Protein is a key nutrient, in terms of nutritional requirements as people get older, according to Kerry Global Sustainable Nutrition Manager Aoife Marie Murphy, PhD. Protein helps maintain muscle mass, which Murphy said decreases between 5% and 8% per decade beginning age 30.

“How do we arrest muscle loss? How do we protect muscle mass? Through protein and exercise, which are both crucial not just for physical activity but also, and more importantly, for day-to-day living. It’s about getting up and out of a chair, getting in and out of bed, walking, playing with your grandchildren,” she said.

For cognitive health, Murphy noted the importance of omega-3 fatty acids and a whole range of micronutrients. But reduced appetite and mobility among the elderly could get in the way of their getting proper nutrition.

“Compact, easy-to-eat and tasty forms of protein are an optimal alternative,” Murphy shared.

Still, such innovations in food products may not be enough to meet the protein requirement of older adults. For one, Asian meals consist of 70% carbohydrates, and mostly of the refined kind, stated Dr. Kalpana Bhaskaran, advisor for Diabetes Singapore and president of the Singapore Nutrition and Dietetics Association. As such, she underpinned the 3As of affordability, accessibility and adequacy in ensuring sustainable nutrition for older adults.

With protein calorie, whether plant, animal or any future variant, remaining pricey, Dr. Bhaskaran noted how high ingredient and product cost limits access, subsequently compromising adequate nutrition. To further ensure food adequacy, the texture and sensory attributes of products must also address the conditions or situations of aging individuals.

“When we design community nutrition programs, we have to make it sustainable as well. All these raise the questions of how we can create products that are affordable and have all these ingredients and requisite nutrients, and that’s where innovation comes in,” said Dr. Bhaskaran.

While foods with a high nutritional profile and protein density are generally the formula, Oliver Truesdale-Jutras, chair of Singapore’s F&B Sustainability Council and chef/founder of regenerative hospitality consultancy Re:Growth, admitted that the reality is that different people have different needs in different situations. He nevertheless pointed out that the diversity in ingredients today plus an understanding of the different conditions of people will enable chefs like him to help address nutrition problems, adding that certain foods not often consumed are very high in certain nutrients.

For a long-term solution, Truesdale-Jutras points to the importance of regenerative farming. “Regenerative farming underpins all the discussions on sustainable nutrition and healthy aging. We are faced with the lowest nutritional density in the foods that we are eating in human history. This goes back to how we grow and produce our food, so ultimately even the topic of nutrition for the elderly brings us back to the need to support regenerative farms,” he shared.

Healthy aging practices, in particular as regards cognitive health, should be approached as preventative instead of as an intervention, shared Angelia Teo, futurist and innovation strategist, pointing to the trend in the Asian beauty market where more consumers as young as 20 start using products instead of waiting till they reach 40 or 50 years of age. Projecting that countries such as Korea will be a super aged society in eight years and Singapore and Thailand aged societies in 30 years, Teo said that whilst longer life spans present good news, they raise some concerns.

“We're talking not just about life span but also about health span, which is the length of time from when one’s health fails to when one passes. Our life spans may be expanding, but our health spans are decreasing. Another reality of aging societies is that we’re going to have to work much longer to support our needs, which is why cognitive health is extremely important,” she noted.

Edmond Scanlon, CEO at Kerry Group, agreed the rapidly changing demographic will affect the way people work and consume food. Many countries have retirement ages under mid-60s, but the specific age can still vary across nations, and in the majority of cases, retirees are still quite healthy and energetic and they want to continue to work.

“As an organization with 20,000 people and that is highly technical, highly scientific and with a lot of individuals with many decades of expertise built up in the industry, aging and nutrition are something that we take seriously. What we have been doing is just trying to have the conversation on aging and nutrition and other related issues not at the very last minute, not the day before people are supposed to be retiring,” Scanlon said.